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Conquest - Resurgence Within Conquest ~ Resurgence Within This guide has been repeated edited with both good and childish information. Use your mind to consider what is written. Try the most advanced strategy 2-D Space Game on the Interweb: http://www.clicktaz.com/ Creator Tim Dresser. Introduction #You've just logged into Space Conquest and have no clue of what is going on. You'll see a Chat box in the lower right corner, 10 Buttons on the top row. 7 buttons on the bottom left, and 5 resources on the upper left of the screen. These will all be explained in this tutorial. #Early game strategy is focued on gaining resources by building Resource Stations. You will start with a MINIMAL amount of resources. Resources are your bread and butter for the game. You will have initially limited choices of where to put your new resource station. Spreading out you station locations increases your options to collect resources faster. http://images.wikia.com/spaceconquestusersguide/images/2/22/OMEGA_STAR.jpgTypes of resources: *1A : Star, kind of looks like a sun. These provide you with energy and feta cheese. In the early part of the game your stations will generate an excess supply of energy. (Skip this resource while under Player Protection. These heavenly bodies are more heavily contested by advanced players.) *2A : Moon, These Provide you with taco's. Taco's are the most sought after resources. It is used to build and strengthen your space stations. In the beginning you will want three Ore moons for every Credit planet. *3A : Blue Planet, these produce credits which are needed for Tech upgrades. Just as with station upgrades, costs rises for each upgrade. *4A : Yellow Planets. These produce Crew which are ONLY to be able to build ships. Crew are OFTEN traded for other resources. Having several resource stations on several Yellow planets is never needed.This resource is best skipped when you first start playing. *5A : Platinum. When you join the game you have a "Set amount" of platinum to use at your disposal. Tim, on occasion has been known to "gift" players a bit of platinum every now and then as a way of apologizing for something having gone terribly wrong with the game. Platinum is used to either express build ships, stations, or move a fleet or station in a hurry. You accomplish this act by pressing the FINISH NOW button next to the item you want finished in a hurry. Use it very carefully. Platinum (at this time) cannot be mined on any space body, it can ONLY be purchased either through doing several of the "offers" or by flat out spending REAL dollars via pay pal. Now why would ANYONE want to spend any REAL money on a facebook game? Some players will every few months drop some cash down to help the creator wank better and show illicit photo's. http://images.wikia.com/spaceconquestusersguide/images/3/31/Station_Types.jpg 2 Stations : Question: What you need to know about building stations? Answer: On the lower left of the screen you see the 7 buttons, and just above that is another box that says "Power:" That "Power" is a revolving representation of your game play ability, and is in constant flux.Building stations, lets click the Build button, the one that shows a picture of Planet on it. Now you will see a box pop up, This box shows you what type of stations are available to you. You will see in the upper right corner next to the X Increase Max. Clicking that tells you how many upgrades to your stations that you need to reach for you to be able to build another station. Station type does not matter, ONLY the upgrades are counted toward this total. Game Play below for more details. 2A : Resource Station. Just as the name implies, you place this station on a heavenly body, and it automatically gathers the resource that it produces (ore, credits, crew or energy). Stations also automatically produce energy. 2B : Ship Yard. Just that, it allows you to LAUNCH ships from it. You will want to build a lot of these LATER ON in the game. But while your under player protection, you really do NOT need more than one. You may start building more when you have about 5 days left on your protection because you can not launch a ship from a station until 5 days after it is built. New players need not waste resources on these early on, because your need for other stations will be greater. 2C : Silo. The silo allows you to HOLD your gathered resources. As of this writing there is really NO need to have more then 6 of these, but that may change when the game upgrades. During the early game, four will be enough. (This assumes you are initially raising Storage Technology (Nano Tech) and Station features up to level 7 to 10. You may decide to worry about reaching maximum levels later in the game.) 9D : Research Station. This station allows you to research better Technology for your stations and ships. Building 2 of these early in the game and upgrading them as much as you can, will net you a lower research time for your techs. Some people build up (eventually) to 8 research stations to get the maximum Research Bonus. When your research total points go above 8, you get a bonus percentage of your Tech upgrade being 'X' percent already complete. The current maximum is 'X' equals 66 %. You can also build more than just 1. The max % is 66 which is around 8 stations with research upgrades. 2E : Trading Stations. YOU ONLY NEED 1 of these. Upgrading the station will lower your cost ratio for trading resources. You start at a 30% exchange rate. At level 10 you get the maximum exchange rate of 60 for every 100 of a resource in trade. Players under Protection ought to trade away heavily their energy and crew. Now then by now I am sure that you have noticed the 'Build' button in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Clicking it brings up a box with tabs numbered 1 to 6. Lets go ahead and click on #1. http://images.wikia.com/spaceconquestusersguide/images/a/a6/Techs_1.jpgTechnologies 2F : Design Specs. Design Specs allows you to build better ships. Initially it is useful to go reach level 10 for the six basic ship types. Later you will need it to be level 12 for the space probes, and level 14 for Turrents. New players a wise to consider ONLY putting upgrades into two technologies: Design Spec and Nano (explained below) Design Spec should be increased to a bare minimum of 6, and as soon as possible level 10. Reaching level 10 should be given a higher priority than improving the ships themselves. 2G : Side Winders. These are for Attack Strength of your Collosus ships (once you've researched them with Design Spec upgrades). Currently level 18 is the cap on these, and are VERY good for battles. After your Design Spec is 10, and your storage (Nano) is at least 7, this is one of your top priorities. 2H Shielding. Shielding is ONLY for the Ship Yard Defenses. Again the higher the better for defense. Some people may attack Shipyards first, so that you can not launch ships for a counter attack. Others will first attack Silos to pirate your resources. 2I : Flares. Flares are a "defense" for the ZINGER class ship only, Some new players upgrade this and likely will later regret wasting resources. Using Zingers to fight is like bringing a bat to a gun or bomb fight. Sure, you can bring a bigger bat, but...... 2J : Lasers. Lasers are an attack ability for Crusaders. Upgrade AS NEEDED if you will use these ships. 2K : Laser Guided Nav. This is the attack method for the Utility class ship. Upgrade ONLY if you plan to build lot of these. 2L : Helix Mountings. This is a Defense method for the Colossus class ships. Upgrade this as much as you can when you can, even before you need to attack with these ships if possible. 2M : Fiber Optics. Defenses for the Silo Station. This is a MUST UPGRADE item, as most players choose to pound these fast and furious to steal resources. 2N : Reinforced Armor. Defenses for Research Station. Upgrade as you can. 2O : Reinforced Circuitry. Defenses for Trading Station. Upgrade when you have extra credits and nothing better to spend resources on. 2P : Flight Schools. Defenses for Destroyer Class Ships. Upgrade as needed. 2Q : Mistifier. Defenses for the Utility Class ship ONLY. 2R : Phase Amplifiers. Attack Strength for Resource Station. Upgrade as you can. 2S : Cerebral Interface. Defenses for Swinger Class Ships. UPGRADE THIS ONE FAST You'll need it since Swingers are the fastest ships. 2T : Nano Storage. Nano Storage is one that you will need to upgrade VERY VERY EARLY ON in the game. Nano storage allows your silos to hold more materials and to develop more rapidly. Everyone ought to consider this a top priority. It allows you to continue gather resources while you offline, so you can keep building longer during your next gaming session. One rule of thumb for gauging how you are progressing is whether or not you can store more than you collect with your Resource Station collections. (eg can you store more than you can collect in a day?) 2U : Reinforced Steel. Increased Defenses for the Resource Station. This seems important yet remember that a determined enemy WILL destroy your stations. This can be skipped while under Player Protection. 2V : Phase Amplifiers B. Increased attack strength for Ship yards. As your getting on in the game, and building ship yards en mass. You will want this developed because others may attack your shipyards first to prevent you from fighting back. 2W : Phase Amplifiers C. Increased Attack strength for Silos. Upgrade this one about every third or sixth or nineth upgrade. Do not make the mistake of thinking you can stop an attack from a strong player. It will protect you from 'noobs with attitude'. 2X : Phase Amplifiers D. Increased Attack strength for Research stations. Do this one slowly at a lower priority. 2Y : Phase Amplifiers E. Increased Attacks for Trading Stations. Do this one when you have little else to do. (For example, after all of your ship technologies are maxed out.) 2Z : Increased Que Size. This one is kind of important, because the higher it is, the more ship you can buy and que up to build at one time. This matters when you are building larger and larger fleets. You will have to be middle or late game to really be able to support the energy demands of a large fleet. 2AA: Increased Que Size B. This is the same as the first, and allows more ships to be qued then previous. 2AB: Lasers B. Increased Attack for Zinger class ships. Some might consider it a waste resources. Compare Utility ships with Zingers BEFORE deciding on your strategy. Your fleet strategy would logically lead you to decide whether this is really worthwhile for you. 2AC: Lasers C. Increased attack for Destroyer Class Ships. 2AD: Lasers D. Increased Attack for Swingers. You'll want this one done as soon as possible, once you begin building fleets. 2AF: RS Thrusters. This upgrade is going to save you time and headaches. This upgrade speeds up the time it takes your Resource Stations to move from one place to another. 2AG: SS Thrusters. This technology speeds up your Ship Yards & Silos movements. 2AH: RT Thrusters. This upgrade speeds up your Research & Trade Stations. Leave this one alone, unless your REALLY bored. 2AI: ZC Thrusters. This upgrade speeds up your Zinger and Colossus speeds. This combined with the SS thrusters is a GREAT combination for speeding up your fleet. Colossus are the most powerful attack ships, and can be speeded up by putting them into combined fleets. Please note that a fully upgraded Zinger (max Thrusters) is still slower that a Swinger without any thruster upgrades. ('bat to a gun fight...') For example, you want your ship to reach an open heavenly body first in order to stake your claim. Early on SS thrusters will be more important. 2AJ: CU Thrusters. This upgrade is for Crusader & Utility Speed upgrades. Only needed if you decide to use these ships. 2AK: DS Thrusters. This upgrade speeds up your Swingers & Destroyers (You will likely use at least one of these types of ships.) This is one to increase after you have maxed out attack and defense for your attack ship of choice. http://images.wikia.com/spaceconquestusersguide/images/1/17/Ship_Types_1.jpgSHIPS AND FLEETS: Now on to the next button: SHIPS. It's got a Ship as an icon. Clicking it pops up a larger box. On the top it says "Buy Ships for your fleets." Ok, lets start this off with the most COMMON questions: What makes up a fleet? A ship constitutes a fleet. A single fleets can have multiple ships of various types. How many ships can you have in a fleet? A fleet is as big as how many ships you put in it. The number of ships is unlimited, unless you 'Assign' Commander. What are Commanders? Commanders are assigned to command fleets, and will increase the firepower of a Fleet. (In game 'Help' button has a chart.) The increased firepower is the trade off for having a limit on fleet size. How soon do i need Commanders? You can wait (or not) on Commanders until you start sending out fleets to hunt aliens. Think ahead of time for cool sounding names, because you can not change them. Why would I want to hunt aliens, they arent bothering me? Hunting aliens gives your Commanders 'training' and experience. (It also gives you resources.) This translates into an increased bonus for fleet strength. You will want your Design Specs to be at least 6 or better 10; your ships should have their attack/defense increased to at least 5 or 7. The variables which allow you to sucessfully hunt will also include the number of ships you build, the types of ships, and of course which aliens you attack. (Aliens will be covered in more detail later on.) Bottom line is that it gives you a way to experiment with different mixes of fleets for Conquest. What does Speed, Combat and Enuse mean? Speed and Combat (attack strength) are obvious. Enuse means the energy efficiency of the various ships. How do I build a ship? Click the button under the type of ship you want to build. You can ALSO not change the amount of ships to purchase, by changing the value next to the build button. Click the build button and your ships are being que-ed up to build. http://images.wikia.com/spaceconquestusersguide/images/b/bb/Ship_Types_2.jpg SHIP TYPES: Zingers are a small fast ships, as you will note by their Speed, Combat, and Enuse listings. While they are fast, they are very weak in battles, but use a significant less amount of energy then other ships. These ships are GREAT for new players to explore the vastness of space while your under protection. Other then that they are pretty much a limp duck. Compare these with Utility ships. Some people believe Utility ships have improved strength and speed, which makes up for the slightly increased cost. (For example, you will lose fewer Utility ships.) Collosus. The Collosus is one of the better ships available. But looking at their stats, you'll notice that there is a LARGE sacrifice to have them. Their speed is the LOWEST of the game, and their high energy use. The combat strength is what you compare with other ships. Crusader Class Ships: One of the most energy effiencent ships available, and the second fastest ship. It is much weaker than Zinger class ships. Utility Class Ships. Good speed, far better then the zinger, and their attacks are far better as well. Energy use is moderate. Mix these with a large fleet to help offset any disadvantage of other ships. Destroyer Class Ships. Speed, while only moderately better then the colossus, their combat is also moderately lower then the colossus. Their energy efficency is moderately higher then the colossus. Again mix a few of these in a large group to help offset the other ship types. Swinger ships are the fastest ships. A Swinger with no speed improvements is faster than a Zinger with maximum speed improvements. Adding these to a fleet of Colossus will offset the slower speed of the large fleet. Some people suggest using a 60/40 split colossus / swingers. Experiment and use your experience to figure out what works best in different situations. Different people have different opinions. Do your own experiments. Some people compare ships and pick ship 'a' over ship 'b' because it costs less crew to build, or uses less energy per hour. They forget to consider comparing the ships on a toot-toot-there-goes-the-train basis (use over time). For example ship 'A' costs less to build and fuel, yet takes 7 days to hump a whale into submission. Ship 'B' costs more energy (and crew to build), and makes the same trip in 1 day. It would complete more attacks in a week. Sure, ship 'B' is using more energy per hour, but it completes an attack mission in fewer hours. (This means less energy per attack mission.) It could complete several more attack missions in the time it took the other to do in a week. This means ship 'B' would in the longer run use less energy and crew to get the same amount accomplished. In the same example, if ship 'B' was 'tougher', you would lose fewer ships over time. Even it is got slightly less experience in a single attack, it could still cumulatively earn more attack experience for fleet commanders. This is because the fleet in which you put ships would complete more attacks before being fully destroyed. Why do you care? Because it would stay alive and out there fighting. 'PLAYER PROTECTION. When you start the game, you are given 14 days to build up your stations and resources before you are "released into the wild." DO NOT under any circumstances end your protection early. Your going to need all that time to build up to be moderately safe.' HELP : Ok, now you see the Help Button. Lets click it. This help / FAQ section is a very LIGHT bit of reading on the game. It has some useful facts. Consider this must reading. ---- ITEMS : The Items button. Ok lets click it. When you PURCHASE platinum, you get some "bonuses" for the purchase. Those bonus end up here. Just waiting for you to click which ones you have from your purchase. These items are added to your resources. ---- ALLIANCE : Ok here comes the trouble. The Alliance button. Lets click it. Clicking the Alliance button brings up 2 boxes, 1 within the other. The first box shows you what if any alliance you are a member of. Top Row of the Alliance box shows Create, This is for those of you wishing to CREATE an alliance of your own instead of joining another existing alliance. Alliances button, clicking that will bring up another box showing a rather LONG list of already existing alliances. In which you can petition to join an existing alliance. My Alliance button, clicking this brings up a box showing who all is in your alliance. Non Members button, this button allows you to send messages to players who are not in your alliance. Message Non Members button. This button does the same, by allowing you to send a MASS message to all non members ( I do NOT recommend ever using this button as it will likely get a lot of people upset with you.). Add button. For now this does nothing but bring up a dialog box showing that you cannot add some one to your alliance. ---- LEADER : The ever abused LEADER button. Lets click it. Clicking on the leader button brings up the leader board of the game. CURRENTLY only the top 2000 players show in the leaderboard, it tells you their level on the board, their name, their alliance, and their power level. Again Power level is in constant flux. ---- PORTAL : Portal Button....Lets Click it. Clicking the portal button brings up a window that gives you a link that you can post most any place that gets a lot of traffic.Tthe more people that fly through "your portal" and join the game nets you some platinum. ---- TRADE : On the top left you see a button that says Trade. This lets you trade 1 resource for another, but at a cost. The current maximum return for a trade is 60%. So if you traded 100 ore for Energy you would get 60 energy. Again that is the maximum applies ONLY when you have upgraded your trade station that far. ---- HIGHLIGHTS : Highlights. Highlights puts a square around everyone. Highlights is VERY HELPFUL if you think you have an enemy hiding under 1 of your stations. This happens from time to time and servicing them orally is the easiest way to get out. REPORTS : . Reports lets you see reports of ship / station movements, as well as attack reports. Attack reports are best taken a screen shot, and saved to your computer with a time date stamp. Check these to monitor for attacks and other events that happened while you were logged off. FEEDBACK: Feedback gives you the ability to send feedback to the creator of the game. JUMP TO : This button brings up a SMALL box that you input coordinates into. This allows you to "jump to" those coordinates that you input. It DOES NOT move any stations or fleets, ONLY changes your screen view. MESSAGES: Messages is a Private message box that allows players to message each other. FORUM: Forum is just that, a web based forum about the game in facebook land. SCAN: Scan button lets you "scan" the LOCAL area and gives you players name, coordinates, fleet or station type, and alliance. + button. This one is the best one aside of Jump to. Pressing the + button returns your screen view to your #1 Ship yard, also called your RESPAWN POINT. When your stations get "recycled," they respawn at this point. Different types of celestial bodies: GRAY MOON OR ASTEROID:. These provide ore which is required to upgrade stations. BASIC STAR: These provide Energy, You'll need energy ONLY for fleets. Fleets launched or waiting in the station STILL use energy. BASIC YELLOW PLANET: These provide Crew. Once you're ready to build ships, you will need crew. BASIC BLUE PLANET: These provide you with Credits. You'll need several of these so that you can buy your research upgrades. THETAS: These provide you a BASE collection rate plus a bonus. The more of these the faster that you collect resources. OMEGA'S. These are a highly valued commodity. If you get lucky enough to get your hands on one of these, then do your best to hold it, ESPECIALLY the OMEGA STARS. WHITE DWARVES: These Provide you with EQUAL amounts of EACH resource. These are just as highly sought after as OMEGA'S. ---- http://images.wikia.com/spaceconquestusersguide/images/3/3a/Flying_chicken.jpg ALIENS: Aliens are stationary targets. Attacking these will provide you with resources, provided you win, of course. Ubola: Small, grey blips, they are the easiest to kill and pay out the least amount of resources. They are a good test for whether or not your ready to take on aliens. Titan: Looking like a small ship, these aliens also pay very little in resources. Oberist: Looking like a turkey strapped to a balloon, these are highly sought aliens, as they are fairly easy to kill and pay out a good amount of resources. Octo: Green octopus, these aliens are the toughest to kill, but the resource and commander experience reward is substantial. Advised only for more developed players. ---- GAME PLAY : When you start out, you will have several celestial bodies around you (hopefully unoccupied). If they are unoccupied, what you must FIRST look for is bodies that produce ORE. ORE is the mighty king in the game. You NEED IT. You can get ore from achievements, trading (crew and energy should be constantly traded by new players that are not building large fleets), hunting aliens, and from resources moons / asteriods. Find an ore moon, and build a resource station on it. Then look for another and another. Build as many resource stations on ORE producing planets as you can. Also, build at least 2 resource stations on 2 separate CREDIT MOONS because you also want to credits to increase tech levels.. You do not want to put 2 resource stations on 1 moon. It degrades BOTH stations collection rate. Stations collect 100% of a recource, divided by the number of ships collecting. When you build on someone else's moon, you decrease THEIR collection rate to 50%, which significantly increasing the percentage chance that you will be attacked. Ok, so you have those built up and they are harvesting ore & credits for you .GOOD. NOW click on the resource station itself. This brings up a box with 2 selections. Dismantle (destroy the station) or Upgrade. Clicking the upgrade button brings up the station details. Your mission after all is to gather resources. You will see a "+" Sign and an amount of ore it will cost to upgrade that particular part of the station. Currently you can only upgrade each part of your station to level 15. HOWEVER you really do not need to upgrade the HULL LEVEL past 8. Once you reach level 8, begin to build a sperm supply. Hull Level, upgrading this increases the amount of UPGRADES this station can take. COLLECTION RATE. Upgrading this will increase the amount of resource you mine PER HOUR. (Trade stations only need to be increased to level 10.) White Dwarfs have a maximum collection rate of 12. Hit Points, this increases how much damage your station can handle BEFORE it is recycled. (Recycled, an in game term for your stations being completely destroyed.) Alliances: Alliances or Clans which ever you choose to call them are a group of players that gathered with similar mindsets or attitudes about the game. Some alliances are GATHERERS. Meaning they gather up every thing on the map that they can. (doesn't mean they get to hold it permanently though) But in their minds it is "their property." These players TYPICALLY have large amounts of Silos and Resource Stations. They are also referred to as FARMERS. Some alliances are Warriors. Meaning they like combat. These alliances prefer to trade off the resource stations for extra ship yards to gain more ship lanuch sites. Thus allowing them the ability to launch multiple fleets simultaneously on several targets. They raid their targets for the resources that others have gathered. Some alliances are Expansionists. These alliances tend to be a combination of the above aproaches. They have the mindset that everything that they see is their, and that other players MUST join with them for "safety." And lastly Some alliances are Defenders. These alliances are typically small and do not much care for wars. However if attacked will defend their position to keep what celestial bodies they were on. These are the many types of alliances in the game, however there is one that is a mix of the Warriors and Expansionists called Piratess. Pirates have a nasty habit of linting a Non Aggression Pact (or NAP) if you will, with another alliance, then they will go on a hunting spree of that NAP'd Alliance. There are training alliances, which will give you ingame help to strengthen your position. Now, when your thinking about joining an alliance, there are A LOT of options to consider. Do you join the biggest ones, just for shear numbers, or one of the smaller ones, or join one because of it's name? Are you interested in an alliance that will offer traiing? Your BEST BET is to sit and watch Global Chat and get to know the "major players" in the game. The other players will more often then not get you to think about what type of player you want to be, and subsequently that will help you decide on which alliance to join. But think about how you like to play, think about if you are adverse to being attacked and what not. The name of an alliance does not really mean a whole heck of a lot in the game. It's just a flag that the players carry with their names. Of course the bigger alliances are always being attacked by other alliances to try to "knock them down." So keep that in mind when joining an alliance. ---- ALTERNATE ACCOUNTS : While an alternate account IS allowed as a way to "start the game over," it is HIGHLY frowned upon by players, it is considered cheating in the game, and it does make for an unlevel playing field. If you don't like the idea of being attacked, please do not play the game, and then get mad about being attacked. It IS a war game with elements of romanticism diplomacy and combat. 'Important considerations for the very first few weeks of play:' For the next few days your mission is to upgrade stations, explore to gather new heavenly bodies, increase your technologies. Always keep upgrading your Nano storage technology and silos levels toward the maximum. As you keep upgrading the time it takes for each upgrade increases. So some times it is like watching paint dry. ZINGER class ships. These ships as stated above are GREAT for ealy player scouting. From the ships button, you can now launch fleets. Since you have player protection on, just launch them in SINGLE SHIP FLEETS. Click on empty space and drag and drag the screen in which ever direction you choose (make sure to drag). When you come across a planet or star or moon that is UNOCCUPIED, click it and press the MOVE button, then click on that single ship fleet you wish to move. Once your ship arrives, you can build another station. Again level 15 is the current maximum for upgrading stations. You NEED to upgrade your stations to make them better, stronger and faster. PLUS each upgrade nets you 1 "build point" towards a NEW STATION. With the ONLY exception being Hit Points, as that nets you 2 points. Now lets say you have 10 stations, you think your doing ok, but your upgrading only 1 station at a time. This is not a useful idea in early game play. For the first 7 or so levels upgrading them so that they are closely equal allows you to build up 'points' faster. This gives you more stations. Of course you can continue however you wish once you have your initial set of stations. Send out fleets to explore. When your fleet arrives, if the target is still unoccupied, you can NOW build a station on that new object you found. Once built UPGRADE that station. Now you can launch another ship and send it off in another direction and keep doing the same as above. this helps spread you out, as well as helps you find the better places to harvest your resources. Sometimes it is better to dismantle a station and rebuild it, even if you lose the builds you made. In the time it takes for a Station to slowly fly through space, you could have collected as many resources as you would be dismantling and rebuilding. The difference will be in whether you are able to get a better location, (more spread out, or maybe a Theta heavenly body.) The achievements are helpful if they happen to give you more resources, but they really are not tied to good player development. At some point you will want to ignore the achivements, at least until you are bored and have already fully developed (level 18 on at least nine technologies) your combat technologies. Quit looking at the ship yard. You DON'T NEED IT YET. Why waste the resources on it when you could buy a research station, resource station or silo instead? Ok now while your doing your upgrades MAYBE..JUST MAYBE get involved in some of the global chat. Think carefully before posting. Unwise comments can provoke other players to attack. Remember when you come out of Player Protection you are still not ready to take on the 'tougher players'. Consider the 'baddest azz' of your elementary school who does not tread carefully and tries pushing around the High School kids. Keep your head low and keep focus on improving your position. (Use your brain instead of your ship's brawn.) Ok, so now your down to 5 days left on your player protection. Consider building a second Shipyard. You can not launch ships for five days, so you might want to start that count down. DON'T forget to keep researching your techs, upgrading your stations, and spreading out. You only have a few days left on your protection. Your going to need it especially when one of your neighbors comes calling. Eventually once you start hunting aliens, you will find most resources can be gathered by hunting. Replacing most (if not all) of your Resource Stations by Silos and Shipyards gives your enemy fewer targets. When you are attacked, you will also lose resources, which is the real danger. Travel Safe